Stuff

The weekly YouGov/Sunday Times survey is up here and has topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 32%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7%.

Most of the rest of the survey dealt with attitudes towards the Chilcot Inquiry and Iraq. Asked in hindsight whether Britain and the US were right to take military action against Iraq support has now dwindled to 25% (down from 27% two years ago, 30% in 2007 and a peak of 66% back in April 2003, the day after the fall of Baghdad). 63% of people now think that the invasion of Iraq increased the risk of terrorist attack against Britain and 54% think it has made the world a less safe place.

Asked about Tony Blair’s role, 48% of people think Tony Blair deliberately misled the public (down 4 points from 2010), 32% think he genuinely thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (unchanged from 2010) – as the years pass, the proportion of people saying don’t know is gradually sneaking up. In a slightly more nuanced question, 29% of people say Blair was essentially correct to warn of the dangers of the Saddam regime, 16% that he misled Parliament but did not intend to do so, 13% that he deliberately misled Parliament, but we should now move on, 24% that he deliberately misled Parliament and should be prosecuted.

Turning to the question of the Chilcot inquiry, 50% of people think the inquiry is worthwhile, 35% of people think it is not. Despite this broad support, only 19% think it will make a genuine effort to get to the bottom of Britain’s involvement in Iraq, 53% think it will be a whitewash. Two-thirds of people think the length of time it has taken to publish the report is unreasonable.

On the subject of leaflets, I remember seeing a street that had been ‘leafleted’ in San Francisco… rather than putting leaflets in mailboxes, they had them printed as hangers, as you see in hotels (‘Do not disturb’). The result was very visible evidence that a campaign had come to your street!

Wouldn’t work here. People don’t normally have door handles like that. Also printing costs are high enough as it is (a batch of 2,000 is about £150) without paying extra to have them cut into fancy shapes.

Interestimg article from PK on the YouGov website with some encouragement but also warning for the Tories:-

“The good news is that the Conservatives have opened up a clear lead when people are asked YouGov’s “forced choice” question – would people rather be governed by a Conservative government led by David Cameron or a Labour government led by Ed Miliband. In our new year poll for Prospect, the Tories lead by 41% to 36%. This five point lead is the highest for two years.”

Labour adopting some rather Green-angled positions in the last couple of days, with a vote against Fracking (on current plans) on the cards and Jim Murphy talking about publicly operated ScotRail.

Natalie Bennett’s trip up on Sunday Politics and the Greens’ less popular policies getting an airing might give Labour a chance to fire off some of their reserve ammunition (a la JayBlanc) and begin a fight back if they play their cards right.

@Colin – Russell Brand advocates not voting for the mainstream neoliberal British parties, and not wasting your vote on a party that can’t get elected. If there were a British Syriza he would advocate voting for them.

How there would ever be a Syriza without a vanguard supporting them from the start, when their prospects still appeared hopeless, is anyone’s guess, though.

Enjoy your trip to Cuckmere & Alfriston. Know them both well as we used to live in Seaford in 1980’s. I imagine you are taking les petit enfants to Drusillas? We used to have a season ticket when our children were small.

“It is not that I am not voting out of apathy. I am not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations”,
RB quoted in a BBC report

@Colin – Exactly – Brand’s decision to not vote stems from what he sees as “the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class”. Syriza are not part of the traditional “political class” and therefore they are not subject to his derogation.

Wait for a different poll. Populus downweights all the new parties – SNP, Green, UKIP so is really telling you how people voted in the last election, rather than how they intend to vote now. Look at the last page.

I did look into it – the additional costs aren’t very much, and in a GE campaign almost negligible. However the main problem (I think) is that it doesn’t fit into the mindset of the UK… look at the number of people willing to put up election posters compared to the US*

It’s a cultural attitude of encouraging self-announcement that doesn’t carry across so well here. Although if you’d seen how decked-out in red and yellow the streets of Heywood were back in October, you might have thought otherwise.

Labour adopting some rather Green-angled positions in the last couple of days, with a vote against Fracking (on current plans) on the cards
____________________________________

This reminds me of when the Tories thought that the EU referendum would burst the UKIP bubble. I think the UKIP surge had very little to do with the EU and much more to do with iimmigration, and the Green surge has very little to do with the environment and a lot more to do with poverty/inequality/austerity.

Unfortunately we don’t really understand the new Green voters because the Pollsters don’t want to give us a crossbreak so we can’t see what their opinion is on the various issues. This is the only one I have seen, and a bit old now:

To go back to the apparent problems with the Conservative Ground Game… I live in an uber-safe Conservative shires seat, and this is my anecdotical study-

The Labour Leaflets and Newsletter still come through, hand posted by the local activists.
When I see a Conservative one, it also comes with the bundle of Pizza delivery flyers indicative of leaflet stuffers.
I don’t remember when I last saw a LibDem leaflet.

No idea what that says about the effective ground game of each party across the nation. But it seems like Labour have activists to spare showing the flag in seats they can’t win.

The Conservative ones are delivered together with Pizza leaflets here too, even in this knife-edge Con/Lab marginal.

There was a flurry just before the long campaign expenses limits kicked in, no doubt because it costs a lot to get leaflets out when you are paying people to deliver them. I suspect that, particularly in the short campaign from the end of March, the campaign limits will constrain how much literature the Conservatives can get out in the absence of volunteers.

Lurker
Coalition?
I said earlier a coalition was no problem but I am more than surprised by the choice of partner. The central point of the party”s campaign was that Germany must pay reparations. Historically there may be a perfectly good case but in reality it is suicidal. As Laszslo said in Syriza you have an amalgamation of the Chamber of Commerce and the SWP to which you have now added a hard right group. I can only see a conflict in which there is one winner.

Old Nat
Bandiera?
You are right about the specificity of Greece. The divisions over World War 2 remain intense which is one reason for the over-extended state. Each side (there were at least three) wanted its own state.
You might even see the current coalition as the line up of two of the resistance movements ( the hard right and far left) against the third (Communist left) and others.

The point is that it cannot really get any worse for Greece, so they have a very strong interest in sticking together at least until they get satisfaction.

I am not someone who tends to support the far-left (far from it) but the circumstances in Greece where the more moderate parties have been rampantly corrupt, and then sold out their national interest completely have got what they deserve.

We should be admiring the Greeks for avoiding the temptation to go far-right.

I suppose the delivery mode for the Tory leaflets makes sense. As with pizzas, they ask you to buy one and get one free (BOGOF). Get Cameron AND Clegg with just one vote!

:-)

A final thought, certainly from me for now, on the Greek election. In an open and free democratic election, the Greek people made their choice and elected a new government for themselves. It was their decision, not ours, and we should respect it. They obviously wanted a completely new direction for their country, both politically and economically. Whatever we think of the wisdom of their choice, or the likely success of the new government, can’t we just wish them well? Greece is a wonderful country, an ancient seat of democracy and its people deserve success and a release from the travails and nightmares of the recent past. I saw the wild scenes of celebration in the streets of Athens last night and I saw a people filled with hope. That’s always a wonderful thing to behold, whatever your politics. Let’s grant them that, just for now, and rather than traducing them as feckless, tax-dodging wastrels, now saddled with the useless government they utterly deserve,instead be pleased for a proud people and a great nation embarking on a new and potentially exciting journey. They’ve chosen a completely different path. Let’s wish them well.

I suppose one bad thing about the Greek election is it’s exposed what a funeral dirge our general election is going to be.

Tories: “Labour will be sh***er than us”

Labour: “We’ll be less sh** than the Tories”

Lib Dems: “Do you know Derek Parfit’s philosophy of self? Allow us to explain: all of us exist only in the present – the only connection between our present selves and our past selves is a psychological one. So free your minds and realize that we are not the same party as the one that has been in government for the last five years.”

@R&D

“Anyway I live in a Durham constituency which is so staunchly Labour that if EVERYONE voted for another party, they would still win comfortably.”

It’s a matter of cash in our constituency. We can’t afford third party deliveries, whereas the Tories are stinking rich! Even Douglas, with his army of helpers, had paid for deliveries during the by-election.

@Crossbath11 – “Greece is a wonderful country, an ancient seat of democracy and its people deserve success and a release from the travails and nightmares of the recent past.”

Agree. A lot of the things people complain about in the Greeks – eg their dislike of authority and dislike of paying tax (free men didn’t pay tax according to the ancient Athenians!), were present in the ancient Greeks too, and were direct cause of them creating the democracy in the first place.

Conformists don’t do radical things like create entire new forms of government. Instead they obediently do as they are told, and yes they pay their tax and clip their hedges on cue, but they also send people to their deaths simply because they are told to. It’s actually better to have a world full of cheeky ungovernable Greeks than a world of people obediently following the dictats of the state/religion/autocrats.

The crisis that triggered the original democracy circa 500 BC was also about debt. They just decided they had enough, chased the aristocratic lenders to the top of the Acropolis and kept them hostage there till they yielded. The compromise was they all agreed to appoint a trusted referee, Solon, to come up with a new system that prevented future problems. He invented the democracy from scratch, presented it to all, and they agreed, and then he decided to exile himself for ten years out so that they couldn’t pick on him during the initial teething troubles. And the rest is history.

Lets hope the modern Greeks can force a radical change in how the EU is governed. It’s become too authoritarian of late, and they could do with being chased up the Acropolis too and held there till they too yield.